


Don't you?

by Polyhexian



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV Third Person, Set directly after the holiday special, Whump, it's a whirl dies au everybody I know you love those
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29712588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: Maybe Nautica didn't check on Whirl in time.
Relationships: Cyclonus & Whirl (Transformers)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23
Collections: AUs where whirl dies





	Don't you?

Cyclonus stretched his arms in an undignified way as he sat up, whole body creaking from weariness. He was getting old, he thought.

"You're up!" Tailgate cheered, voice a grounding chipper tone that filled Cyclonus's chest with warmth. He let his lips twitch something closer to a smile as he set his arms down to regard the minibot standing in the B.E.D. beside his own.

"Did you think I would sleep forever, little one?" he chuckled, amused. 

"No, _duh_ ," Tailgate rolled his optical display, "But you're so slow! We're never going to get our booth _now._ "

"We've only just awoken from hypersleep and you're already aching for engex?" Cyclonus inquired, "You've really been spending too much time with Whirl."

"Never. Whirl's fun," Tailgate snorted, and hopping out of his pod onto the ground. Cyclonus noticed most of the other pods _were_ open, he really had taken his time. "That's a good idea, though! Let's go get Whirl, if our spot is taken he can annoy whoever took it right out of there."

"And some people think you sweet and innocent," Cyclonus commented, grabbing the lip of the pod to heft himself out.

"Nope. I'm a devious monster. I'd have ended the whole war myself if I'd been there for it."

"I'm sure." Cyclonus fluttered his wings and rolled his plating as he stood, before he sighed. "Alright. I believe Whirl was assigned to E hall."

"Let's go see if he's up yet, then!" 

Cyclonus followed behind Tailgate as they made their way there, the minibot chattering on about a dream he'd had in hypersleep. Cyclonus listened dutifully, and thought to himself that a year ago he had so deeply resented this person he cared so deeply for. Thinking back, he was overwhelmed with pity for the bitter, miserable creature he'd become. Allowing himself to be happy again had been the best decision he'd ever made.

"What's going on?" 

Cyclonus looked up when Tailgate stopped, his voice changing from cheery to concerned as they turned a corner. The corridor was crowded, full of whispering mechs that stood shoulder to shoulder, blocking his view. Someone was crying.

"I don't know," Cyclonus commented. He looked up at the E painted on the wall. "Perhaps Whirl's broken something?"

The wailing grew louder as he approached, even as the whispering died away. He could feel everyone's optics on him as he stepped through the crowd, quiet mechs stepping back to let him through.

It was Nautica who was crying.

"It's my _fault!_ " she sobbed, collapsed into Brainstorm's arms like she'd just as soon fall apart without him, "It's all my _fault!_ "

"It's not your fault," her amica assured her, his voice uncharacteristically soft. Cyclonus hadn't heard him speak that way since his trial. "You didn't know."

"I did! I must have!" she cried, shaking her head as she sniffled, "I knew he was going to do _something,_ I just didn't want to know I knew, but I _must have,_ I had to know, I _did-_ "

"No one can ever predict anything Whirl does," Brainstorm told her, "It wasn't your fault."

"What's wrong?" Cyclonus asked, "What happened to Whirl?"

They both looked up at him when he spoke, Brainstorm with resigned pity and Nautica with horror before she wailed, wordless and miserable, burying her face from sight. Tailgate took a shaky intake beside him.

"Oh, no," he whispered. Cyclonus looked down at him and then followed his optics to what he was looking at.

A pod was open. Velocity knelt beside it, holding a tube of red liquid marked _quarantine_. She had a diagnostic machine beside her, a waterfall of wires running from it and into the still form laying motionless in the pod.

It was Whirl.

Cyclonus took a step forward. "Is he alright?" he asked. Nautica sobbed again behind him.

"Spark suffocation," Velocity murmured quietly, without meeting his optics, "He self terminated before we entered mauler territory."

"Can you fix him?" Cyclonus asked, stopping beside the pod. Whirl's paint was wrong, too grey, his normally clicking, misaligned systems silent.

"Cyclonus," she said, voice thick and heavy, "He's gone."

"Gone?" Cyclonus repeated, uncomprehending. 

"I'm sorry," she told him, "Were you friends?"

Cyclonus stared at him, motionless, cockpit broken open and helm tilted gently to the side, like he had laid down to rest and never gotten up.

Cyclonus thought back to when they first met, his lumbering, trembling silhouette in the light that spilled through the open door, the match in his claws and smell of skunked energon in the room. His pleading holoform, hands clutched around his throat at Cyclonus's window and the glowing faces of the clocks in his room. He thought about his hand on the doorframe as he hesitated. 

"Because you're not afraid of me," Cyclonus had told him, voice thick with his tightly controlled tone but betraying still the turmoil he could not suppress within, "And we certainly aren't friends."

"I don't know," Cyclonus whispered, "Were we?"


End file.
